What's New @ Ramsar

Ramsar/Swiss side event at the CBD's COP7 -- Water as Ramsar's new focus

Convention on Biological Diversity
Conference of the Parties, 7th meeting
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

To the news editor

Media invitation

Who deals with water globally ?...
Water as Ramsar's new focus

The water issue has become one of the first priority in the international agenda after the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, but two years on, we still lack a global strategy for water, the CBD discussions have hardly started to solve a part of the problem and no international instrument is really focusing on the issue.

Aware of this, representatives of key countries in the Ramsar Convention will be discussing the new focus of the Convention, that integrates the human and social aspects of water management, along with its institutional and economic dimensions to shift from the "wetlands for birds" perspective to that of "water for people".

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Lanscape, and the Global Environment Centre cordially invite you to join them at the "wetlands, rivers and water" side-event for first hand information on this new approach to solving the global water crisis.

"Wetlands, Rivers & Water: the Developing Ramsar Convention"

Date: Friday, 13 February 2004
Time: 13h15 - 14h45

Venue: Kelantan Room, Room 2
Putra World Trade Center

The agenda of the event:

- Peter Bridgewater: The Ramsar Convention, a convention from the past – for the future.
- Gordana Beltram: The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a key tool for conservation and use of wetlands.
- His Excellency Beat Nobs (Swiss Federal Agency for the Environment, Forest and Landscape): The Ramsar Convention, the major global water convention.
- Tomme Young (IUCN Environment Law Center): Legal perspective on broadening the Ramsar Convention.
- Faisal Parish (Global Environment Center – Malaysia): the river basin initiative: a broader scale in action.

Media release

For further information about the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, please contact the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ). Posted 13 February 2004, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.